


blood of the coven (the homesickness & cookies remix)

by darlingargents



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Baking, Cookies, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Remix, Remix Revival 2018, Team Bonding, Vignette, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 11:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: It becomes a thing for the three of them: cookies and bonding. Sometimes one of the others on the Team joins in, but it’s their thing. And Zatanna, for what it’s worth, likes it that way.





	blood of the coven (the homesickness & cookies remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Homesickness, Grief, Loneliness, Hate, and Cookies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2559044) by [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/pseuds/summerdayghost). 
  * In response to a prompt by [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/pseuds/summerdayghost) in the [remixrevivalmadness2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixrevivalmadness2018) collection. 



> (i haven't rewatched Young Justice in like a year I know this is probably vaguely inaccurate) (just go with it yeah?)

After the first time, it becomes a recurring pattern. All three of them live in Mount Justice, which means that when the rest of the team is in their home cities in their civilian identities, it’s just them — Zatanna, M’gann, and Conner — against the world. They go to the same school, and in the evenings, they’re in each other’s orbit. Zatanna gives M’gann and Conner space when they need alone time, and in return they leave her alone when they realize she’s not in the right headspace for company.

And the nighttime baking becomes their thing.

The second time it happens, Zatanna comes home from school and goes straight to her room, barely getting in the door before she starts crying, deep, wracking sobs pulling her ribs apart. She doesn’t even make it to her bed, just kneels with her back to the closed door and scrubs her hands over her eyes as if it’ll slow the tears pouring out.

It feels like forever later — though it’s probably only half an hour or so — that she finally feels the tears slowing. Her knees hurt when she stands, and she just walks a few more feet and flops down face-first onto her bed.

She spares a moment of thought to be grateful to Conner and M’gann for their discretion, and for the supervillains of earth for not choosing today to pull a Team-level scheme that she would’ve needed to help with.

She hugs her pillow to her chest and rubs her eyes — still wet, but the flow of tears has slowed and nearly stopped. She’s not sure why she broke down today. Really, it was nothing. Just another moment that she forgot, for the barest of seconds, that her father is gone. She’d been on her way back to Mount Justice, and she’d thought with a small smile that she couldn’t wait to tell her dad about a joke her English teacher told the class. And then she’d remembered, and it had hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest, and she’d barely made it back to her room without breaking down in public.

She lays in bed for probably another half hour, until she starts getting hungry, and then she wipes her eyes again and goes into the kitchen. There’s no one else around, so she grabs a paper towel and runs cold water on it before pressing it over her eyes to sooth them.

She’d taught M’gann and Conner that trick. Neither of them had considered what would help stinging eyes in human — or half-human, as it may be — bodies.

She’s still hungry, and there’s not much food in the fridge. There’s some cold mac and cheese, so she pulls that out and casts, “ _ Taeher doof _ ,” to warm it up before digging in.

Eating alone, in that massive kitchen, is pretty depressing. Zatanna considers and decides against leaving for her room, because she thinks that’s probably even more depressing. So she eats the mac and cheese and wonders if this will be her life. Loneliness and the taste of day-old food.

The thought has just crossed her head when M’gann comes in. “Zatanna!” she says cheerfully, either missing or choosing to ignore the vibe of the room. “That doesn’t look very good. Would you like cookies?”

“Are there cookies?”

“No. We can make some!” M’gann pulls out a tray and starts to collect ingredients. Zatanna kind of wants to be alone, but she also doesn’t really know how to say no to M’gann’s relentless optimism. So she sighs and grabs the chocolate chips to make sure her own favourite flavour will be represented in this baking adventure.

Zatanna expects to make cookies, eat them, go back to her room, and cry for the rest of the night. She doesn’t expect her mood to start lifting as she helps with measuring and mixing, and she definitely doesn’t expect to find herself laughing along to M’gann’s story about cheerleading practice. She doesn’t expect Conner to show up and “help” by using his extra-fast reflexes to “sample” the cookie dough before it goes in the oven. She doesn’t expect to end up laughing until her stomach hurts as M’gann chases Conner around the kitchen shouting at him for eating too much of their cookie dough.

Two hours later, she goes back to her room with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, and half an hour later she’s joined by Conner and M’gann, who want to watch a movie. They spend fifteen minutes arguing over options before Zatanna puts her foot down and introduces them both to Mean Girls.

When Zatanna goes to bed, she’s happy. It’s so unexpected that she finds herself pausing as she lies down, wondering what happened.

Friends. Friends happened.

*

They branch out, over the next few times. Brownies. Cobblers. Cakes: cheese, cup, pop, and otherwise. Pies. But they always return to the basics: cookies and bonding, enough to forget the loneliness that surrounds all three of them.


End file.
